Chronicle of Nowhere

During the martial law period, along the coastline engulfed by solemn silence, a group of anachronistic architectures emerged out of nowhere. UFO Houses, featuring colorful and smooth oval-shaped plastic contours, were elegantly named “Exquisite Space Pod Houses” by the locals. In a way, it secretly became a hub of futurism even before Taiwanese society fully embraced modernism. Man-made landscapes manifested a brand-new value in line with the great utopian vision: the future is light, colorful, technological, consumer-oriented and sentimental. Even an enduring myth passed down from generation to generation cannot escape the fate of word of mouth. A half century later, we stood on the same coast with a retrospective gaze. The landscapes of the past looked utterly foreign, but when we attempted to look into the future, we were soon overwhelmed by a sense of déjà vu.